Ed Poor wrote:
I beg you to donate this passage, which is from your book "Trust Us We're Experts" to Wikipedia, Sheldon. May we have your permission to incorporate it into the [[pseudoscience]] article?
Feel free to use or adapt it as you see fit. However, the Wikipedia article already contains most of the ideas in the passage I cited. It already mentions Karl Popper, it already talks about "falsifiability," and it has quite a bit of other information that is actually quite a bit more detailed than the passage I quoted from my book.
For that matter, what are the legal technicalities involved in the case where a published author wants to donate a tiny portion of a copyrighted work, to the public via the GPL? (I'm not saying Sheldon would want to do so in this case: this is brilliant prose, and he's entitled to make money off it; more power to him!)
I'm not an attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC 107, says that "fair use of a copyrighted work...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." It goes on to specify the following criteria to be used in judging whether the use made of a work constitutes fair use:
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
With regard to points (1) and (4), Wikipedia would be on solid ground in quoting brief excerpts from a book or other published work of significant length. Wikipedia isn't a commercial venture, and a brief quotation or adaptation from a book wouldn't hurt sales. Assuming attribution is given, it would probably *contribute* to sales. No harm, no foul.
I'm not sure what point (2) is intended to address, but I think it applies to unauthorized use of confidential documents or trade secrets.
On point (3), the "amount and substantiality" of an excerpt is subject to varying court interpretations, depending on the nature of the work. Quoting a brief poem in its entirety could be a copyright violation, but a 1,000-word passage from a book probably isn't.
If you wish to research this further, the following URLs may help:
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/clasguid.htm http://www.law.emory.edu/6circuit/nov96/96a0357p.06.html
I'm not an attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC
107, says that "fair use of a
copyrighted work...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news
reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright." It goes on to specify
the following criteria to be used in
judging whether the use made of a work constitutes fair use:
You seem familiar with copyright law. I have considered making Wikipedia a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles. If I find a photograph of, say, a koala, and I want to add it to [[Koala]], is that permissable (if I can attribute the photo)?
On Fri, 2003-03-21 at 00:26, cprompt wrote:
I'm not an attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC
107, says that "fair use of a
copyrighted work...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news
reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright." It goes on to specify
the following criteria to be used in
judging whether the use made of a work constitutes fair use:
You seem familiar with copyright law. I have considered making Wikipedia a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles. If I find a photograph of, say, a koala, and I want to add it to [[Koala]], is that permissable (if I can attribute the photo)?
You really should try not to. Others think we can get away with it; but it's certainly not in the spirit of Wikipedia.
But there is tons of discussion on this issue already on Wikipedia...can someone pull up the links?
On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 00:26:33 -0500, cprompt cprompt@tmbg.org wrote:
I'm not an attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC
107, says that "fair use of a > copyrighted work...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright." It goes on to specify
the following criteria to be used in
judging whether the use made of a work constitutes fair use:
You seem familiar with copyright law. I have considered making Wikipedia a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles. If I find a photograph of, say, a koala, and I want to add it to [[Koala]], is that permissable (if I can attribute the photo)?
That is seldom sufficient. All material on Wikipedia ought to comply with the GNU Free Documentation License. See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights In general, if you are approaching someone for permission to use a photo they own the rights of, they need to understand that once on Wikipedia it is free for anyone else to use within the terms of the license. And if you really want a photo of a Koala, I have one I took myself, which I amd happy to release, also kangaroos, wombats and a dingo.
Richard Grevers wrote:
And if you really want a photo of a Koala, I have one I took myself, which I amd happy to release, also kangaroos, wombats and a dingo.
I have often thought that a fun website would be for amateur photographers who are willing to release images under the GNU FDL or similar. To be really good, it would be great if such a site had forms for people to print and sign and paper-mail in, formally attesting to their taking the picture and releasing it under GNU FDL.
There are a great many images that would be nice to have in an encyclopedia -- photos of famous buildings, landmarks, celebrities, news events, etc.
--Jimbo
On Fri, 2003-03-21 at 04:05, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I have often thought that a fun website would be for amateur photographers who are willing to release images under the GNU FDL or similar. To be really good, it would be great if such a site had forms for people to print and sign and paper-mail in, formally attesting to their taking the picture and releasing it under GNU FDL.
Sounds like a job for wikimedia.org!
In the meantime, of course, we have the underutilized http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_pictures
I highly encourage people to replace disputed images with ones of known compatible license, which is most easily ensured by taking them yourself.
Of course things like album covers and historical events might be tricky. ;)
There are a great many images that would be nice to have in an encyclopedia -- photos of famous buildings, landmarks, celebrities, news events, etc.
I keep meaning to wander around LA with a camera and snap some pictures. Hopefully I won't get picked up on suspicion of planning terrorist acts!
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
cprompt wrote:
You seem familiar with copyright law. I have considered making Wikipedia a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles. If I find a photograph of, say, a koala, and I want to add it to [[Koala]], is that permissable (if I can attribute the photo)?
Fair use is a grey area for us. As a non-profit encyclopedia, we are in a fairly strong position to make fair use of materials so long as the *other* factors for fair use are reasonably met.
Here's a good article about it for those who need background: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/rice.html
(Interestingly, this article was written by Condoleeza Rice, not normally famous for copyright analysis!)
HOWEVER, we are also producing a GNU FDL work that we anticipate being licensed widely, and not everyone who licenses our content will have the same "fair use" status. This is at least potentially problematic.
Additionally, if we view part of our charitable mission here as "expanding the intellectual commons", then we ought to be biased against "fair use" and in favor of "GNU FDL" images.
The issue is similar to the question of including non-free software bundled with free software. I think we should tend to be purists in this regard.
It's worth noting, though, that we can't be *absolute* purists unless we are willing to forego even quoting of sources.
--Jimbo
At 12:26 AM 3/21/03 -0500, cprompt wrote:
I'm not an attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC
107, says that "fair use of a > copyrighted work...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright." It goes on to specify
the following criteria to be used in
judging whether the use made of a work constitutes fair use:
You seem familiar with copyright law. I have considered making Wikipedia a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles. If I find a photograph of, say, a koala, and I want to add it to [[Koala]], is that permissable (if I can attribute the photo)?
Probably not. I am not a lawyer, but the criticism and comment part of fair use is criticism or comment about the work in question--that is, you can quote part of a novel in a review of said novel, or a photo of a koala if you're writing a critical article about the photographer's work.
--- cprompt cprompt@tmbg.org wrote:
I have considered making Wikipedia a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles.
That is a noble project, and if you stick to public domain or GFDL pictures, it will be much nobler still. Please familiarize yourself with the wealth of image resources listed under
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources
I think Jimbo's suggestion of a free photo resource site is great. It could work pretty much like the GIMP photo archive
http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/
with a wiki-edited set of keywords for each photo, except it should allow uploading of course, and needs to keep track of the license (or lack thereof) and origin of each photo. Initially, we could seed the database with all the photos from the public domain sources. Could be a bit resource hungry though.
Axel
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--- cprompt cprompt@tmbg.org wrote:
I have considered making Wikipedia a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for
some articles.
Hi all,
Talking about free picture...
Would anyone have a picture (free :-)) of Bagdad surroundings. Not an oil well, rather desertic landscape, or local plant or animal ?
Thanks
Anthere
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On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 10:55:44PM -0600, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
I'm not an attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC 107 [...]
I think following US copyright law is a mistake - much better to follow a policy of complying with the law in as many countries as feasible. (I've no idea if in this case it makes a difference, I just wanted to raise the point)
It might not be of much importance *now*, because of course the server is on US soil. However, if we want to put wikipedia on paper or CD one day, restricting the legal market for it to America would be bad.
Jason Williams wrote:
I think following US copyright law is a mistake - much better to follow a policy of complying with the law in as many countries as feasible. (I've no idea if in this case it makes a difference, I just wanted to raise the point)
I like this suggestion generally, but I'm not sure what differences there might be. U.S. copyright law is pretty restrictive, so if we adhere to U.S. copyright law, we're probably not violating anyone else's copyright laws. Are there counter-examples?
And I'd make a distinction (philosophically questionable, but we're trying to get work done here 'on the ground') between complying with laws that are _copyright_ restrictions versus complying with laws that are _censorship_. In that case, I have to insist that we not worry too much wether NPOV articles might be illegal in some other countries. Individual contributors should do what they need to do to stay out of jail, of course.
For example, there was a brief controversy about whether certain types of articles about racism might be illegal in France. I don't really care, although I certainly encourage our French wikipedians to do what they need to do to obey the law in their own country.
On the other hand, most of the censorship laws in Europe don't really impact NPOV articles anyway. In France, it's illegal to insult the President. But insulting people is not NPOV anyway, so there's really no conflict.
--Jimbo
Article on French censorship: http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,900093,00.html
On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 06:40:35AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Jason Williams wrote:
I think following US copyright law is a mistake - much better to follow a policy of complying with the law in as many countries as feasible. (I've no idea if in this case it makes a difference, I just wanted to raise the point)
I like this suggestion generally, but I'm not sure what differences there might be. U.S. copyright law is pretty restrictive, so if we adhere to U.S. copyright law, we're probably not violating anyone else's copyright laws. Are there counter-examples?
I'm not particularly well-informed on this matter, but I vaguely suspect exceptions for parody and fair use are the most likely to be a problem.
And I'd make a distinction (philosophically questionable, but we're trying to get work done here 'on the ground') between complying with laws that are _copyright_ restrictions versus complying with laws that are _censorship_.
Agreed - this isn't a binary issue by any means. I think we just need to consider and balance two factors; international compliance, and how important whatever we want to do is to the task at hand.
It's very important to be factual and neutral, so if that limits international legality then so be it.
Pictures of koalas or album covers aren't nearly so much of a "core issue", so if it turns out that they are illegal in places outside the US they should be dropped.
And I'd make a distinction (philosophically questionable, but we're trying to get work done here 'on the ground') between complying with laws that are _copyright_ restrictions versus complying with laws that are _censorship_. In that case, I have to insist that we not worry too much wether NPOV articles might be illegal in some other countries. Individual contributors should do what they need to do to stay out of jail, of course.
For example, there was a brief controversy about whether certain types of articles about racism might be illegal in France. I don't really care, although I certainly encourage our French wikipedians to do what they need to do to obey the law in their own country.
On the other hand, most of the censorship laws in Europe don't really impact NPOV articles anyway. In France, it's illegal to insult the President. But insulting people is not NPOV anyway, so there's really no conflict.
--Jimbo
Article on French censorship:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,900093,00.html
Dear Jimbo,
If I read you well, you are first saying that making "illegal" to insult someone is "censorship".
I disagree. I don't call that censorship,but "civilization". We are perfectly allowed to say publicly that we agree with our president, or disagree with him, for such and such reason. So, we are not censored. However, we can have problems with justice when we say someone is an asshole. Or a worm. But in truth, what does exactly mean ? What is more important, using fact to support our claim that we disagree, or saying someone is a worm ? Where's the censorship here ? Btw, this does not apply only to our president.
You are also saying that "insulting people is not NPOV anyway"; I don't understand why. If the claim is substanciated, and attributed; where is the POV that we need to take of ? Say, if we state that someone stabbed a politician for being gay, and later explain to the police he did because because the politician "est un p�d�". That's an insult, but that's a fair account of what was said, by who, to who, about who. How can it be not NPOV ?
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